Words from Willard

This page is a collection of thoughts my dad wrote down over the past several years. Actually it is only a small portion of his work but I plan on adding more as time permits. I hope you find them as thought provoking as I do.

SEEKING THE TRUTH

You are the 'Expert'

If it does not come from love, it is not real. To be sure it is "experienced," but it is an illegitimate experience.

A man who has been hypnotized and told he is a dog and is running around on his hands and knees barking is having an illegitimate experience. He is not a dog, but he is "experiencing" himself as a dog. He has by agreement with the hypnotist given his power to decide what is real to the hypnotist. He is essentially asleep and "dreaming" he is a dog It is a real "experience," but it is not the experience of reality. We have, "by agreement" given our power to decide what is real to the institutions of the world. We are inundated continually with suggestions by the "experts" in every field as to what life is all about and we "dutifully" attempt to live up to those suggestions. We are "asleep" just as surely as the hypnotized subject is asleep, and believing that the dream we are experiencing is the experience of reality, but it is in "conflict" with reality. There is no love in conflict there is only more conflict.

We are in a very real sense "at war" with reality. We are at war within ourselves, and that war is expressed externally as the conflict in the world. To "wake up" from this illegitimate experience it is mandatory to take back the power we have "given away," and we don't get it back by "fighting" for it, we get it back by loving ourselves enough to trust that we are intelligent enough individually to decide for ourselves what is real.

It is a tough row to hoe, because trusting the "experts" is a thoroughly ingrained "habit." It is more than habit it is an "addiction" that it just as difficult to "kick" as a drug addiction, but kick it we must if there is every going to be peace in the world.

Don't question the experts, as that only breeds conflict; question instead your reliance on the experts to make your decisions for you, and don't try to do it in one fell swoop. Do It In little increment. Don't overwhelm yourself. Ask yourself in all situations "What is the truth here?" and just the asking of that question will open the door that will allow what is real to reveal itself to you.

A SMALL THING

Reference to the safety of an assumption when rescuers are speculating on how to retrieve someone who is trapped in a well is appropriate, because the wrong assumption could endanger the one who is trapped, but the question, "is it safe to assume"?, or statement, "it is safe to assume", are very often heard in discussions of abstract things where a wrong assumption would not "endanger" anyone. The only thing it would be "dangerous" to would be a fragile ego. you might say I am nit picking or making a mountain out of a molehill, but I don't think so. It is a very often used phrase and it is used out of habit, unthinkingly. Anything that is habitually used without awareness is a vary thoroughly ingrained response or reaction that says more about a person's basic approach to life than even that person is aware of. It is a very basic assumption that it is dangerous to be wrong no matter what the situation is. If that individual is assuming something to be right, and that assumption is challenged, then, because it is dangerous to be wrong the challenge will be seen as a threat to the individual that requires defense. At that point all reasonable discussion ceases and self righteousness takes over. It is now a battle over who is right. It's a no win situation. The challenger may have had a point that would have been of value in clarifying a mistaken assumption that was behind a whole chain of mistaken assumptions that were making the life of the individual whose assumption was challenged less than what it could be, but if he is concentrating on defending himself, that clarifying point won't be heard. All he will hear is an attack. It could be that both parties are operating from a false assumption, and then there is a war that isn't over until one party or the other is beaten into the ground, all to protect self righteous egos. No progress, only failure for both parties, but the victor thinks he has won. He has bolstered his position and clings even more rigidly to his mistaken assumption. That is how the insanities of Nazism or any dictatorship get started. A "small" thing, indeed !

PROGRESS

If the technology of today had been available in the days of the crusades or the Spanish inquisition, planet earth would be nothing but a cloud of atomic dust, yet the ancient doctrines that were preached to justify those activities are still being preached today. It is as if the truth existed once back there in time somewhere and was lost, so we have to be continually reminded of the truth that once existed, which of course implies the truth is something that doesn't exist today. planet earth is still intact, in spite of all its trials and tribulations, and we do have the technology to convert it to dust. That implies---, no, it literally shouts to me that man has progressed in the application of truth, way beyond what the ancient doctrines promoted as truth. I am not suggesting that there is no truth in the ancient doctrines, I am suggesting that those who are still promoting the ancient doctrines have not done a very good job in separating the wheat from the chaff. They assume for some strange reason that those individuals responsible for originating those doctrines were less encumbered by superstition and were more honest than present day man. A few hours spent in reading ancient history will dispel that myth. If there was ever a dog eat dog, every man for himself, oppressive, prejudiced, dishonest, downright unloving civilization, it was the civilization that existed in ancient times. There is more compassion in the little finger of modern man than in the whole being of ancient man. They solved their crime problems by cutting out tongues, cutting off hands, sex organs, and heads, equality was a non-existent principle. A state of war existed at all times between tribes, and the strongest tribes made slaves of the weaker tribes It was out of that morass of man's inhumanity to man that our religious and moral doctrines arose. To assume that the utter hatred, prejudice, myth, fear, etc. was not expressed in the doctrines that arose from that civilization, is to me, utter insanity, or utter blindness to reality. To preach those doctrines in tote as truth is, as far as I am concerned, the promotion of ignorance. Those doctrines have been promoted as truth for so many centuries they are part of the thinking process of almost everyone, and it is a rare individual who has the courage to override the fear instilled by these doctrines and honestly question them or look beyond them. I think the time has arrived, not to fight against those who are preaching these doctrines as truth, but for each individual to ask himself whether he is comfortable with these outmoded doctrines. Institutionalization is the only way these doctrines can be kept alive, but they won't stand up to the scrutiny of the honest individual. Only the individual can admit to himself that he doesn't know. The Institution can't do that, or it risks its existence as an institution.

Willard the heretic

More to come.....